This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why.
Observe: While observing the High School for the first time, I picked up on the teachers various styles of asking questions. To open the class Mrs. J went over the worksheet the students had for homework. When going around in the beginning of class and checking the homework sheet she realized that many of the students had troubles with the homework. She would read off the question and then call on a student and have them respond to the question. This type of question asking is simply recall because the students are just recalling the answers to the problems they should have completed the previous night. When I looked at one of the questions on the homework sheet was the one that asked the students to design experiment that shows photosynthesis. This questions was more of an application question, and it is important for the students to be able to answer these questions. In the lower level class not many of the students were able to answer this application question, She wasn't sure if it was simply the students not trying or if they were really struggling with the question. She had the students look up experiments in their book that would relate to photosynthesis.
Reflect: In my classroom I hope to ask all different levels of questions to my students. I will often challange them with application and analysis questions to make sure that the students are not simply remembering facts, but rather are applying what they know to real life situations. The students in some instances will have to answer recall questions, these questions will be used to remember prior knowledge, and to teach students simple concepts in science. Ofcourse for my students to get good at answering the more difficult questions, they will have to constantly be tested with them. When I say tested with these questions, I don't neccesarily mean on formal test, but rather that I use these questions in my lectures to be sure that the students are getting practice answering them. When I have different level classes I will have to limit the amount of higher level questions I ask the students, but I do not want to completely get rid of them. It will be important for me to make sure that no matter what level students I am teaching, that I will be forcing them to think and apply knowledge and not simply memorizing and restating facts. Science is used in our everyday lives and can be very interesting, it is my job as the teacher to show these students how interesting science can be.
Observe: While observing the High School for the first time, I picked up on the teachers various styles of asking questions. To open the class Mrs. J went over the worksheet the students had for homework. When going around in the beginning of class and checking the homework sheet she realized that many of the students had troubles with the homework. She would read off the question and then call on a student and have them respond to the question. This type of question asking is simply recall because the students are just recalling the answers to the problems they should have completed the previous night. When I looked at one of the questions on the homework sheet was the one that asked the students to design experiment that shows photosynthesis. This questions was more of an application question, and it is important for the students to be able to answer these questions. In the lower level class not many of the students were able to answer this application question, She wasn't sure if it was simply the students not trying or if they were really struggling with the question. She had the students look up experiments in their book that would relate to photosynthesis.
Reflect: In my classroom I hope to ask all different levels of questions to my students. I will often challange them with application and analysis questions to make sure that the students are not simply remembering facts, but rather are applying what they know to real life situations. The students in some instances will have to answer recall questions, these questions will be used to remember prior knowledge, and to teach students simple concepts in science. Ofcourse for my students to get good at answering the more difficult questions, they will have to constantly be tested with them. When I say tested with these questions, I don't neccesarily mean on formal test, but rather that I use these questions in my lectures to be sure that the students are getting practice answering them. When I have different level classes I will have to limit the amount of higher level questions I ask the students, but I do not want to completely get rid of them. It will be important for me to make sure that no matter what level students I am teaching, that I will be forcing them to think and apply knowledge and not simply memorizing and restating facts. Science is used in our everyday lives and can be very interesting, it is my job as the teacher to show these students how interesting science can be.